The present invention relates generally to record carriers which contain both human-readable data and machine-readable representations of data and images, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for fabricating confidential or intrinsically valuable record carriers, such as credit cards, driver's licenses, access or personal identification cards, passports, visas, tickets or bearer financial instruments. In such carriers known in the prior art, sophisticated printing or fabrication techniques are used, so that a counterfeiter would find it difficult to reproduce the card. For example, the card may include a photograph of the bearer, or a hologram.
Currently, many record carriers include both graphic images, such as a design or photograph, and data, such as textual or numerical information. Passports, visas, driver's licenses and credit cards include photographs of their owners and data about the use of the records. A passport has information about the personal background. A visa has information regarding the purpose of the visit of the holder. A driver's license has information regarding the owner's driving restrictions. A credit card has information on the owner's account number.
In order to discourage the fraudulent manufacture of instruments or cards having financial value, such as credit cards, card manufacturers produce a card that includes a holographic display. A hologram is a recording of an interference pattern between two beams of light, usually referred to as the signal beam and the reference beam. The signal beam usually includes the visually recognizable image to be recorded (such as a bird, a globe, or a company logo), and the reference beam is a beam of light, usually of constant distribution, i.e., plane of spherical wavefront. Typically, another reference beam, similar to the one used to record the hologram, is used to reconstruct the signal beam, which then produces an identifiable image. For many holograms, one cannot identify an image without reconstruction.
The holograms typically used on credit cards are what are known as reflective surface, or rainbow, holograms. They are produced by placing the image to be recorded near the surface of the holographic substrate during recording. These holograms are visible in ordinary, white light and should be familiar to most holders of credit cards. The rainbow hologram can be mass produced on sheets of metalized embossing substrate, and stamped onto credit cards. Such holograms are a deterrent to counterfeiting because their production requires an expensive manufacturing investment, and the authenticity of the card is easy to determine by visually viewing the hologram in ordinary light.
Other records have images, such as pictures of the bearer, and other types of data. For example, certain financial instruments, such as postage stamps, food stamps, or currency will have a distinctive picture, such as of George Washington, as well as data about the financial instrument. Other instruments, such as stock certificates and the like, have similar types of images and data.